sunrise (the ground is stained red)
by aqaws321
Summary: They knew this day would come. They watched each other as the sun rose, and prepared for war. (Jack used to watch the sun rise in a room at the Foundation. There aren't any windows left.)


**It's been. well, it's been too long since i posted anything, tbh, but. i have an excuse! rl jumped on me with finals and a swim meet and anxiety getting worse than normal, so there was that, but in doing better now, finals are finished, i don't have a swim meet for like a month and a half, and I'm back! i'll do my absolute best to get the last chapter of "Brother" up over the next few days.**

* * *

It was a little thing, really.

It was just that there used to be a window in the War Room that Jack, though he would never admit it, loved to watch the sun rise through whenever the team was there.

(There are no more windows in the building. They're covered with boards and metal tables and anything that provides a scrap of cover.)

The sun would peak over the skyline and, if there were clouds in the sky, they would be stained pink and purple and look like something out of a painting.

The sunlight would seep into the room slowly, edging over the floor, until- if Jack stood in just the right place- it'd stop right on top of his toes, warming his skin through his shoes.

(The floor is stained red in places, so, so many places, and they can't get it out of the carpet. They try, desperately, painfully, to remove the reminders of what happened. Jack finds Mac scrubbing at the floor one day, at a particularly prominent red stain, his hands raw and red and almost bleeding.

Jack stops him, gently draws him away, and Mac stares up at him, blue eyes stricken and wide enough to let one drown in the anguish lying there. "I can't get it off."

Jack swallows as he looks back at the stain, remembering how he almost died as it formed. "It's okay. It doesn't matter."

Jack thinks that that might be Mac's little thing that bothers him; the fact that the stains won't come out is jarring for him but for Mac it seems to be absolutely agonizing.)

On stormy or cloudy days, the sun would illuminate the clouds and turn them into the color of smoke, beautiful and wispy.

(Smoke billows from the lab sometimes, and they rush down there with fire extinguishers and their hearts in their throats as they desperately pray that nothing will explode, because if it does, there's nothing they can do to contain it.

They have to leave the wing whenever it happens, because they don't have a good way of getting rid of the smoke other than letting it dissipate slowly through the cracks in the boards that cover the windows. They sit there in quiet, the six of them, listening to the background noise of agents quietly going about their daily tasks until Mac stands, hurls a wrench across the room, and leaves the room as quickly as possible.

The door slams behind him.

Mac gets angry easier and more often these days.)

On days when it was raining so hard that you could barely see out the window, the sunset would be just barely visible through the downpour, a glimmer of something just out of reach but tantalizingly close and promising fair weather ahead.

(Jack thinks about this as they prepare to fight the woman that's trapped them here, that thinks that they're all dead, that underestimated their genius.

He thinks it might resemble hope, if he were one to see poetry in nature.

But he's not, so he keeps that thought to himself, claps Mac on the shoulder, and prays that the young man's newfound anger won't get them into trouble.

He should know better. Mac's always been good at keeping a handle on himself when it counts. Jack knows, in the back of his mind, that the kid's going to need some serious therapy after this, but then again, won't they all?

They find Nikki as she's walking to her car outside her home, bodyguards (agents that used to be Phoenix but decided that money or other things were worth more than loyalty) surrounding her, and she laughs.

Her laughter sounds like the rain that tried to blot out the fact that the sun was still rising, that there was still hope of better days ahead, but failed.)

And the sunset? The sunset was stunningly beautiful. Jack will admit that to himself, and will concede the fact, to a chosen few only, that he sometimes steps into the War Room at dusk for a certain reason.

("Please," Mac pleads with him, eyes wide and desperate and full of anguish and unrestrained pain. "Jack, please."

Jack doesn't even need to ask what he's begging for.

The blood underneath his back is as red as the sky at sunset and matches the one that stains the carpet at the Foundation, but Nikki's expression- surprised, even in the moment of death, that her plan backfired, that one of her agents had turned against her- is reminiscent of the surprise of one seeing the glory of the sunset for the first time.)

Jack's always liked the sunrise best, though.

(The sun rises gloriously outside the window of his hospital room. The golden sunlight that sprawls across the room mixes with the golden head of his partner, who, in turn, is sprawled across Jack's bed and is clutching his hand.

Jack lies back and watches as the sun paints the sky purple and pink.)


End file.
